Congressional Black Caucus Plans Walkout During Holder Contempt Vote

The Congressional Black Caucus plans to walk out of the House tomorrow when the contempt-of-Congress vote on Attorney General Eric Holder is taken. Apparently, they have scheduled a meeting at 10 a.m. to discuss the walkout and urge other Democrats to join them. Holder, the first black attorney general, has not released documents relating to the Fast and Furious debacle, and Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has been relentless in his search for the truth.

The Democrats are certain to mention the fact that House Republicans, then in the minority, walked out in 2008 when contempt charges were filed by the House Democrats against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers, staffers in George W. Bush’s administration. Of course, they will neglect to mention that when the Republicans walked out, it wasn’t over the contempt charges per se, but the fact that the House Democrats used the contempt charges to avoid passing the FISA bill, which was about to expire and allowed the federal government to initiate new activities monitoring terrorists. House Republicans were furious that the Democrats were putting partisan politics before the nation’s security.

And now the Democrats are doing it again. By walking out of the vote against Holder, they are showing that they are more concerned about the fact that Holder’s demise could damage their president than the fact that Holder endangered US security. Brian Terry would be alive today if not for Fast and Furious; who knows how much other damage has been inflicted as a result of that policy?

But the Congressional Black Caucus is probably the area of Congress most joined-at-the-hip with the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. And they cry racism at the drop of a hat. Just two weeks ago, Angela Rye, Executive Director of the CBC, said:

“This is probably the toughest presidential term in my lifetime. I think that a lot of what the president has experienced is because he’s black. You know, whether it’s questioning his intellect or whether or not he’s Ivy League. It’s always either he’s not educated enough or he’s too educated; or he’s too black or he’s not black enough; he’s too Christian or not Christian enough. There are all these things where he has to walk this very fine line to even be successful.”

Americans aren’t racist; they elected the president Angela Rye refers to. There’s nothing to prove anymore, and the Congressional Black Caucus may discover that their knee-jerk defense of Holder on racial grounds will not fly. If they take their ball and go home, they may find that no one wants to play with someone crying racism any more.